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Sk. Khabir v. The State of West Bengal

Criminal Appeal · 2018 INSC 948Decided 10 Oct 2018
Criminal Appeal No. 1289 of 2012
Justice N.V. Ramana · Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar

Background

In 1981, two brothers of the complainant were chased and brutally killed by a mob of villagers armed with swords, spears and lathis, and the complainant himself was seriously injured, after the family had returned to their village following an earlier, unrelated arrest and release on bail. An FIR named about 26 people, including the appellant, and after a first trial was set aside for irregular framing of charges, a retrial convicted the appellant and five others under Sections 148/307 read with 149/302 IPC, with sentences including life imprisonment. The Calcutta High Court upheld the conviction in 2010, and only the present appellant's appeal survived to the Supreme Court, the other appellant having died in the meantime.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found that the eyewitness testimony of the complainant and another witness was fully corroborated by the medical evidence, including a doctor's opinion that the fatal injuries matched the weapons described, and was consistent with the FIR's contents despite the witnesses being relatives of the deceased. It noted that even the two witnesses who turned "hostile" (did not fully support the prosecution) had not denied the incident occurred and confirmed their presence at the scene. Finding the concurrent findings of the trial court and High Court free of any perversity or serious infirmity, the Court saw no reason to interfere with the well-reasoned conviction and dismissed the appeal.

Lesson Learnt

An appellate court will not re-open a conviction merely because some witnesses are relatives of the victim or because a few prosecution witnesses turn hostile: what matters is whether the surviving evidence, taken together with medical proof, reliably establishes the crime, and courts give strong weight to consistent findings reached by two courts below.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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